Mexican general election, 1952
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This article is part of a series on the politics and government of Mexico |
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General elections were held in Mexico on 7 July 1952.[1] The presidential elections were won by Adolfo Ruiz Cortines, who received 74.3% of the vote. In the Chamber of Deputies election, the Institutional Revolutionary Party won 151 of the 161 seats.[2] These were the last presidential elections in Mexico in which women were not allowed to vote.
Campaign
President Miguel Alemán Valdés appointed his Minister of the Interior, Adolfo Ruiz Cortines, as the PRI's presidential candidate.
Miguel Henríquez Guzmán, a former PRIísta who left the party in 1951, was nominated as the candidate of the Federation of the Mexican People's Parties. The National Action Party (PAN) nominated Efraín González Luna as their first-ever presidential candidate. Finally, the well-known union leader Vicente Lombardo Toledano ran as the Popular Socialist Party's candidate.
The 1952 campaign season saw the model of political advertising aimed at praising the virtues of a party's candidate adopted. It was also the first time in Mexican history that market research was used in a political campaign.
Among the opposition candidates, Henríquez Guzmán became particularly popular. His campaign used a mariachi tune composed for him by Manuel Ramos Trujillo to promote his candidacy. Though this use of campaign jingles was condemned by critics who saw it as taking away the seriousness of politics, the success of the song throughout many regions of the country led to widespread adoption of this and other marketing techniques in future campaigns.
Results
President
Candidate | Party | Votes | % |
---|---|---|---|
Adolfo Ruiz Cortines | Institutional Revolutionary Party | 2,713,419 | 74.3 |
Miguel Henríquez Guzmán | Federation of the Mexican People's Parties | 579,745 | 15.9 |
Efraín González Luna | National Action Party | 285,555 | 7.8 |
Vicente Lombardo Toledano | Popular Socialist Party | 72,482 | 2.0 |
Other candidates | 282 | 0.0 | |
Invalid/blank votes | – | ||
Total | 3,651,483 | 100 | |
Source: Nohlen |
Chamber of Deputies
Party | Votes | % | Seats | +/- |
---|---|---|---|---|
Institutional Revolutionary Party | 2,713,419 | 74.3 | 151 | +9 |
Federation of the Mexican People's Parties | 579,745 | 15.8 | ¹ | New |
National Action Party | 301,986 | 8.3 | 5 | +1 |
Popular Socialist Party | 32,194 | 0.9 | 2 | +1 |
Mexican National Party | 24,139 | 0.7 | ¹ | New |
Invalid/blank votes | – | – | – | |
Total | 3,651,483 | 100 | 161 | +14 |
Source: Nohlen |
¹ Between them, the Federation of the Mexican People's Parties and the Mexican National Party won three seats.[1]
Aftermath
In the official election count, Ruiz Cortines won with more than 74 percent of the popular vote, followed by Henríquez Guzmán with 16 percent. These results set off a wave of protests in several states by Henríquez supporters, which were violently suppressed by the administration of Miguel Alemán Valdés. Among those calling for justice were the former Mexican ambassador to Honduras, José Muñoz Cota Ibáñez, and Alicia Pérez Salazar.
Some military chiefs, sympathizers of Henríquez Guzmán and aligned with former president Lázaro Cárdenas, seized the opportunity and proposed to carry out a Coup d'état so that Henríquez would become President. However, it was Henríquez himself who rejected the plan, and instead he asked his supporters to stop the violent protests.[3]
Despite the intensity of the protests, the results stood. Henríquez Guzmán then retired from public life and Ruiz Cortines took office on 1 December.